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Because undeniably, every time the Obama administration bends a deadline for the Affordable Care Act — delaying the employer mandate for the second time, putting off parts of the enrollment launch, or giving customers just a little more time to sign up — it fuels the perception that the administration is just winging it, and gives Republicans new fodder to accuse the White House of rewriting laws too casually.

That doesn’t mean the busted deadlines always matter in the real world, though. Some matter more than others. Insurers have been genuinely put out by all the rules that have been changed along the way, which has dumped more work in their laps. That raises the risks of enrollment errors and other problems down the road, like price increases because insurers didn’t get the mix of customers they expected.

Business groups, however, don’t seem bothered by the latest delay in the employer mandate. In fact, they’re saying the employers who are getting the extra time will be happy to have it.

“I see the politics of it, but the reality of this is very different,” said Bruce Elliott, manager of compensation and benefits at the Society for Human Resource Management. “As a practitioner, I don’t see how this can be a bad thing.”

And vulnerable red-state Democrats — the ones who have the most incentive to protect themselves from the clunky Obamacare rollout — aren’t piling on the White House over the employer mandate extension.

“Overall, I’m hearing that it’s good and the extra time is appreciated,” Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.), who’s in one of the closest Senate races in the country and has been critical of the rollout, told POLITICO. He says business owners in his state haven’t suggested it will hurt the administration’s credibility: “I hear that stuff inside the Beltway, but out in Arkansas, I’m not hearing it.”

The biggest impact the delays will have, then, is political — as they help Republicans revive the image of an Obama administration that just never had its act together as it launched its signature health care initiative.

They’ll keep firing up the base by accusing President Barack Obama ofignoring the law, even though it’s not a law they support in the first place. And every time Democrats point to the signs that things are going better — especially the surging enrollment numbers that were announced earlier this month — Republicans will use the busted deadlines to try to revive the image of incompetence.

“Every delay is just another reminder of how badly the law’s implementation has gone,” said Republican strategist Kevin Madden. They also raise suspicions that the Obama administration is trying to push off any consequences of policies like the employer mandate, Madden said: “They keep trying to push the political ramifications further and further back on the calendar.”

Democrats insist it’s just part of the messiness of launching a major new social program and making sure it works — and that it’s natural for Republicans to take advantage, but that task will become harder as the implementation gets back on track.

“The fact of the matter is that not one program like this has worked from the get-go — not Medicare, not Medicare Part D, not Social Security,” said Democratic strategist Joe Trippi. The Obama administration “oversold how easy this was going to be,” said Trippi, but “now Republicans are in danger of overselling the disaster.”

The latest employer mandate delay is just the latest in a long string of moving deadlines. In December, the administration gave people an extra week to sign up for January coverage — and then bent that deadline by another day — cutting health insurers’ processing time from two weeks to one. It gave customers until Dec. 31 to pay their premiums, and convinced insurers to accept payments even later (and even then, a lot of customers still haven’t paid up).